The Upside to Technology
by Margolo Blu
Summary: Hudson muses on technology while watching late night TV, and the trio get a new game.


**The Upside to Technology **

Hudson had had dreams that were less confusing that television. Television, more specifically the technology that made television run and the society, made all his dreams, no matter how strange, into a possibility, most often grander than the dream itself, and if it was a particularly weird dream, it often found itself as sitcom. A few times Hudson scratched his head, was he truly dreaming, dreaming with in something else he thought was a dream? No, it was just another half-baked human plot with a group of strange people living together in one building. It was far stranger to watch technology work, with all the gears, bolts, and chips, and even stranger to watch how the human society moved in part to technology, minus the gears, bolts, and chips. Technology ran the room, the building, the city, the country, the world, and the society.

It was enough to make an old gargoyle feeling even older.

Hudson could not even go out and stand on the landing without feeling small and old. The buildings around him bent over like buzzards, glaring down with their glowing, flickering lights, air-conditioners running, and radios loudly playing disembodied, undistinguishable voices with beats sounding like war drums, threatened to fall upon and devour him. He found himself continually reminded of just how much everything has changed and just how big everything had become. He found himself continually reminded at just how old he was and how, now, he may not be able to support the weight of the world on his back anymore.

The television screen proved to be a more un-menacing companion than the city. The view of the city, the country, and the like and the unlike could be viewed through a tiny screen that he looked down on from his chair. When the image grew unbearable or simply boring, he simply changed the channel to something else. He wondered how big of a remote would be required to change the city to something he liked, preferable with mountains in place of buildings, streams in place of sewers, and an invading Viking lord in place of Xanatos. The Starbucks…they could stay, he could live with that. He was quite fond of the smell of Starbucks, the only out of the many smells that flooded the city.

There was another commercial for a potion…no pill…that is the correct terminology. How could he have forgotten that now there were words and names for everything and everything much are referred correctly as such by their name to avoid the confusion that humans were infamously notorious for. Elisa explained that there are books, volumes of books, dedicated to writing down words and names. Hudson had to blanch. They have books for this now?

Like potion, there was a pill for everything. No wonder he had the two confused all the time. There were pills for headaches, upset stomach, heartburn, hair loss, misbehaving children, lack of sleep, too much sleep, tiredness, lack of attention, dry eyes, wet eyes, depression, anger, memory loss, fertility, lack of fertility, ear wax build up; any thing that could be wrong imaginable for the human body was made into a pill. Anything that required a day's worth of bed rest, or a crack across the head, or some kind of change in the person taking the pill, had a pill. There were potions for just as useless and strange things as well. A pill came in a bottle much like a potion, except that it was a small, brightly colored, concentrated pebble look-a-like. One night there will be a purple pill for heartburn named in some language unknown or unused by an of the three races, and the next night there will be another pill in a different shade of purple treating more symptoms of heartburn with in an even more ridiculous sounding name.

It was the fifth time tonight he saw the commercial with Bob in it. Why must the same commercial be play over and over again repeatedly? The moment he hears "This is Bob", he will simply change the commercial to another station. He did not care to hear about human's small social problems. He had forgotten that everything is blown out of proportion lately.

Hudson changed the channel again to station that specialized only in music. Some song in a fast beat scratched from the speakers, the only understandable words were "I want", "Baby", "You", "Me", and "Girl". Next week the song would be replaced with another song with the words of "I want", "Baby", "You", "Me", and "Girl" with an even flashier and straightforward video. One can only tell a story so many different ways before it gets boring, even without all the glitter, short skirts, and synthetics.

Hudson changed the channel, and then changed it again. Just as he finds a channel that he could settle on till sunrise, the trio rushed up, toppling over each other.

"No, no, I get to play it first!" Lexington explained holding a disk up, and out of Brooklyn and Broadway's grasp.

"No fair, you always get to play them first," Broadway exclaimed.

"Yeah, let someone else play," Brooklyn added.

"And you always get to play second," Broadway snarled at Brooklyn. Brooklyn looked at the aqua gargoyle.

He hissed, "I was taking your side, but if you want to be like that."

For the brief second Brooklyn and Broadway paused, Lexington hurried to the television set and gaming system.

"It's our night to have the TV set," Lexington said to Hudson.

"Aye lads, it all yours," Hudson answered tossing Lex the controller.

As Broadway and Brooklyn bickered, Lexington set up the television and prepared to pop the game into the system.

"All right guys, time to see our prize," he exclaimed, holding the disk up, free from its plastic holder.

The other two gargoyles rushed up.

"Careful!" Lex exclaimed. "You don't want to break it!"

"Hurry up and put it in! We're not getting any younger," Brooklyn said. Hudson sighed.

"All right, all right, don't get your tail in a bunch," Lexington exclaimed. "Give me a second."

One second passed then two, then three.

"Well?" Brooklyn huffed.

There was a clicking sound as Lexington tried to fit the game into the system.

"It won't fit," Lexington said.

"What do you mean, it won't fit?" Brooklyn asked. Broadway's face dropped.

"That can't be right, it has to fit," Broadway exclaimed. "We waited three…no four months for this game to come out!"

Lexington picked up the game's case. He read the back. "Sword swinging, dragon slaying action packed into every gaming second, multiplayer and multi character and scenery and secondary character interaction. 3-D animation and 360 degrees of gory medieval fun packed in each level."

Lexington mumbled through the list on the back of the game. His shoulders sank. "Oh no…"

"Oh no what?" Brooklyn asked. He took the game case off of Lexington. "You're joking. This is for a new system! A new system we don't have."

"Aw, come on," Broadway exclaimed looking over Brooklyn's shoulder. "We waited four months for that?"

"This is a load of bull," Brooklyn said, tossing the case on the ground. "Anyone up for one last run around the city?"

Hudson laughed from his chair. He put his hands behind his head. "Aye lad, that is the upside to technology, it grows old even faster than I do."


End file.
